A Poor Choice Of Words

But without digging into the theological nitty gritty here, the bottom line is that however different the theology may be, Mormon morality is very much the same manichean [bold mine-DL], good vs. evil outlook as traditional Christianity. ~Mark Hemingway

In fairness, Hemingway clarifies in an update that he doesn’t use manichean here in a way that actually refers to, well, Manichean beliefs, and he certainly isn’t the only person who uses manichean in a very loose and inaccurate way, but it is notable that he uses this word in a post that is trying to explain and contextualise a heterodox idea in Mormonism. In the Mormons’ defense, they do not have a Manichean understanding of the universe, and neither do Christians. Manichees believe the created order is a prison for human souls that was created by an evil principle, and understand morality as a war of spirit and matter that is significantly different from the moral theology of both Mormons and Christians. Since Manichee is one of the most overused heresiological tropes in history, it was an unusually unfortunate choice for someone who wanted to deflect criticisms of Mormonism.

P.S. Hemingway’s update is itself unfortunate when he refers to the “dualistic notion of good vs. evil” in Christianity. Christianity doesn’t have a dualistic notion of good vs. evil. In the classic patristic formulations, whether of Augustine or the Greek Fathers, evil is the negation and absence of good. A dualistic notion of good vs. evil would be…the Manichean understanding.

No comments

Recent Articles

I’m back from Washington, and I have an announcement for readers of the blog: Eunomia will be shifting over to The American Conservative’s site here. This will be the last post at this site (the redirect will be set up soon), and all future Eunomia blogging will be at TAC.

Romney lost statewide, as we already knew, but more remarkable is the number of districts he has lost. He lost many of them by thin margins, but that is not much consolation. It appears that he has lost almost all, except the 21st, 49th and 52nd (which he has won) and possibly the 42nd, which is very […]

By Republican strategist Alex Vogel’s calculation, Mitt Romney is giving Gramm a run for his money. The former Massachusetts governor has spent $1.16 million per delegate, a rate that would cost him $1.33 billion to win the nomination.
By contrast, Mike Huckabee’s campaign has been the height of efficiency. Delegates haven’t yet been officially apportioned, but […]

It seems to me that this is hard to discern from exit polls. First, the exit polls aren’t measuring why people voted one way or another, but which candidate they supported and which demographic groups they belong to, so the only thing we can know with any certainty is the level of support, or lack of […]

As of 11:00 Central today, Romney has won just three primaries all year and all of them are effectively his “home turf.” All of his other wins have been caucuses, many of them not strongly contested by his rivals.
P.S. It’s hard to gauge the outcome from county results, but so far every county that has reported shows a […]